NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Forget your old boring science lab — Brooklyn’s new RLab is paving the way for the future.

It’s short for “Reality-Lab,” and it’s helping both students and startups design products which will change the world.

Immediately after putting on a virtual reality headset, PhD student Sebastian Herscher felt like he was transported into a movie that he created.

“Instead of seeing a spaceship on a screen, you are in the spaceship as the movie is going along,” he said.

The NYU student’s dream is to design a VR theater. With the help from the new RLab at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, he and many other students are able to come up with state of the art technology.

“We want to see thousands and thousands of people working in virtual reality and augmented reality, because we know right now we have the job openings,” NYCEDC President and CEO James Patchett said. “We just need to make sure people have the skills.”

The RLab is the first city-funded virtual and augmented reality center in the country. The idea is to support startups, talent development, and innovation. One group was designing a virtual reality software so people with physical disabilities can paint using a headset and their voice.

“Patients who usually have some weakness in their arms or missing an arm,” NYU graduate student Raksha Ravimohan.” They can go to a while other place and create art.”